Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Happy Christmas without coal!

Despite the tsunami of anti-renewables propaganda, despite the invasion of trolls in the comments, despite the insults against scientists and against everything sustainable; there is still hope of a clean and prosperous future (we just can't expect Santa to bring it to us for free - we'll have to work for it!)

Hello! This is Ugo Bardi - I tend to overextend myself on the Web by writing a lot of stuff. Presently, my blog in English is titled "Cassandra's Legacy". In English, I have another blog a little more esoteric, titled Chimeras. The first is dedicated to sustainability, the second to mythology, history, and art. See also my latest book, "The Seneca Effect," Springer 2017.

2 comments:

Er....well Ugo, I AM getting my solar generated electricity for free. I have rented out the air space above my roof to 'A Shade Greener' who are PV installers. They have installed their solar PV arrays above my roof and connected it to the grid. They will receive Feed-In-Tariff payments from the government for every kWh of renewable electricity generated, regardless of whether I use that electricity in my home or it goes into the grid. So I get to use what I can with nothing to pay, and reduce my electricity bills in the process.

It has been up and running for one month now and generated only 173kWh, but considering it has been a month of storms and the shortest days of the year, it is better than I expected in this cloudy overcast country.

The project is funded through peoples energy bills and I would be far happier if the money was used towards making homes more efficient, educating people about energy consumption or installing wind farms. PV is just not well suited to the UK and the return is poor. Many people refer to it as 'Green Bling'. However the aims of this project were to bring down the cost of installing PV and that has been achieved - the cost of a PV installation has more than halved since the project started. It has also provided jobs and training opportunities for installers.

In the end I had to have the PV panels, if only to promote discussion with my neighbours and hope that some of them will sign up too! I hope the opportunity for free solar electricity comes your way too, especially as you get far more sunshine :-)

Ugo Bardi's blog

This blog deals with the future of humankind in view of such things as the overexploitation of natural resourecs and the effects of global warming. It is a bit catastrophistic, I know, but, after all, the ancient prophetess, Cassandra (above in a painting by Evelyn de Morgan) turned out to have been right!

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Listen! for no more the presage of my soul, Bride-like, shall peer from its secluding veil; But as the morning wind blows clear the east,More bright shall blow the wind of prophecy,And I will speak, but in dark speech no more.(Aeschylus, Agamemnon)

The Seneca Effect

The Seneca Effect: is this what our future looks like?

Chimeras: another blog by UB

Another blog by Ugo Bardi; it is dedicated to art, myths, literature, and history with a special attention to ancient monsters and deities.

Rules of the blog

I try to publish at least a post every week, typically on Mondays, but additional posts often appear on different days. Comments are moderated: no insults, no hate, no trolls. You may reproduce my posts as you like, citing the source is appreciated!

About the author

Ugo Bardi teaches physical chemistry at the University of Florence, in Italy. He is interested in resource depletion, system dynamics modeling, climate science and renewable energy. Contact: ugo.bardi(whirlything)unifi.it